Hence, today’s puppet theater.
Many people stumbled from grief into depression. It hadn’t taken much—the occasional “ill-chosen” remark evoking memories of home and family—to nudge Rikki over the precipice. Thereafter, it was all about waiting for the right moment.
Which Rikki, snapping one of those chicken-wing arms of hers, had obligingly delivered. Sidetracked, feeling useless—she had fallen hard.
Li ignored the stirrings of guilt. When the cast came off, the “nutritional supplements” she would provide would rebalance Rikki’s neurotransmitters.
“Well?” Blake demanded.
Head canted, Li gazed off into space. “What I said about the artificial wombs? Let me rephrase it. Of course they’ll nurture the unborn—but I’ll have to monitor the process at all times. We don’t dare put our trust in software that never had our circumstances in mind.
“What harm did decades of radiation do to the frozen embryos? Without a doubt, some, and those effects will be random. Ditto for the biotech of the wombs themselves. And though we understand fetal and early childhood development on the Moon and Mars and piddly little asteroids, we know nothing about the process in more than a standard gravity. We don’t know what sensitivities or allergies a fetus might develop to amniotic fluid synthed from Dark biomass, or infants to formula synthed locally. We’ll need major reserves of every possible trace element, nutritional supplement, and medicine. We’ll need—”
“We’ll do what it takes,” Blake said. Turning, he focused his gaze on Dana. “Won’t we?”
Would Dana deny her old friends? Li doubted it.
Dana asked, “Does any of this become easier if we wait?”
“Who cares about easier?” Li said. “I love children. Why do you suppose I did what I did, back home?” Dramatic pause. She would have preferred a dramatic, heartfelt sob, only she couldn’t carry that off. Not, in any event, with Mother’s sarcastic laughter ringing in her memories. “This needs to work. I need this to work.”
“We all do,” Dana said. “Tell us everything you will need and how we can help.”
And so, centimeter by centimeter, Li allowed them to coax her into starting the first cohort of babies. Whatever that took. With everyone standing ready: to test, tweak, and fine-tune the artificial wombs, under her guidance. To come running whenever her medical training—or, so much on Dark being uncertain, her instincts—insisted human eyes and brains were needed to observe. To synth or, whenever templates weren’t available, to improvise, everything they would need on hand: from diapers and hypoallergenic cleaning supplies, to blankets and bassinets, to bottles and nipples and a stockpile of formula, to specialty tiny surgical gear just in case….
Everyone at Li’s beck and call.
Dana, throughout, would be scouring the solar system for every obscure trace element imaginable—certain all the while that her being anywhere but the colony was wise and responsible, and vindication of her insistence on keeping the ship flying, and her very own idea. Leaving a complete leadership vacuum on Dark.
Dance, my marionettes. Dance.
This, Mother, is how one exercises power. With finesse.
DYSTOPIA
(Spring, Year Four)
27
Beneath a sullen teal sky, under the pitiless glare of an alien sun, Blake plodded forward. No matter the ceaseless wind, despite the remnants, all around, of the spring’s latest unseasonable snowfall, he dripped with sweat. He was as tanned as a walnut, as filthy as mud, as exhausted as…as….
Words failed him.
Somewhere beyond the too distant horizon his destination beckoned. If only he could reach it. If only he could see his goal. If only he could spare a moment to rest. If only he—
To a flourish of trumpets, he shuddered awake.
Bach? McCartney? Copeland? Some centuries-ago composer. A way to keep alive a bit of the culture they had left behind, that Li insisted it was important for them to cherish. Most mornings, the random selection was okay.
This was just a discordant bleat.
“I’m up,” Blake croaked, so Marvin would kill the noise. “Lights on dim.”
At Blake’s side, Rikki tugged the blankets over her head.
“Time to get up, hon,” he said softly, sitting up.
She burrowed deeper.
“We have things to do.”
“Yeah.” She threw aside her covers, but required a minute to summon the energy to stir further.
Blake understood. He hadn’t felt rested since….
Since Eve arrived.
After willing themselves from bed, he and Rikki quickly showered and dressed. Outside their concrete cabin, the dawn air had a chill to it. At the height of summer, mornings would have a chill to them.
The sun had yet to clear the horizon. Almost as baleful as in his dream, the dawn light, blood-red, blazed down the settlement’s lone street.
Red sky in the morning, sailor take warning, the ditty bubbled up from his subconscious. What about a sun that ever verged on red? What about a greenish sky?
Blake turned toward the dining hall. Rikki, a wistful look in her eye, faced the other way, toward the much larger, but no less utilitarian, squat concrete box that was the childcare center.
What the hell, they could gobble breakfast. It was only fuel, best not noticed.
“We can spare a few minutes,” he told her, offering his hand.
Rikki led them down Main Street, the rutted path there was never the time or the resources to pave, into the childcare center. A broad corridor, its inner wall entirely one-way glass, enclosed the facility on all four sides. They paused first outside the gestation room, its glow panels still night-dim. On forty-eight empty wombs, Ready lights shone a steady green. Carlos expected to have another ten or more units finished soon.
On a rear-wall display, above and behind the wombs, counters ticked down toward Family Day. Forty-five days….
Around the corner, in the gallery outside the nursery, he and Rikki tarried longer. In twenty-seven glass-enclosed cribs, eerily hushed, babies slept, or stirred, or fussed. The little ones only seemed silent; so that they would not disturb each other, noise cancellers in each enclosure masked most sounds. Though the babies varied in size, they were almost identical in
